In thinking about this episode, it’s the details that jump out at me, despite all the major goings-on. The black comedy of the cops explaining their presence in Oraetta’s apartment by simply saying “He woke up.” Oraetta’s taunting of Ethelrida: “What does it feel like to be so sure you’re right and nobody cares?” Josto and Gaetano literally bragging about the size of their dicks. (“Big like a pickle?” Gaetano asks his brother, quoting “The Humpty Dance” of all things.) The lovely slo-mo shots of strutting gangsters and lethal shootouts in the episode’s opening gang-war montage. Josto trying to lift his brother up affectionately and failing miserably. Josto’s baffled “What the fuck?” when Gaetano dies. Odis’s smile. Gaetano’s flapping skull. Loy’s forgery of a painting he grew fond of when he saw it in a magazine, and Ethelrida’s ability to identify it.
If this season of Fargo is to be considered a success, it’s in these little things, these images, these exchanges of dialogue—moments that accumulate and tell a story of their own, even if the big picture has yet to come together.
I reviewed the penultimate episode of Fargo Season Four for Decider.
Tags: decider, fargo, reviews, TV, TV reviews